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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29070834">We'll Wait For The Cycle, We'll Repeat Our Same Mistakes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux'>gaialux</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Walking Dead (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/M, Infidelity, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:28:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29070834</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What happened in the times before.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Lori Grimes/Shane Walsh, Rick Grimes/Shane Walsh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>We'll Wait For The Cycle, We'll Repeat Our Same Mistakes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/gifts">sasha_b</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Shane is here.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That's all there is to it in Lori's world. Shane is here and ready and willing and he kisses her with passion and flames and fire.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>But he's not Rick.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He never has been and never will be.</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When Shane was younger, he dated a lot of chicks.</p><p>Enid was his first proper girlfriend. He was fourteen, trying to act cool with a ratty denim jacket he swiped from the local thrift store. She had braces. With bright red rubber bands twisted around the metal. She tasted of metal, too, when they kissed.</p><p>It was the same year he met Rick. The kind of awkward, gangly guy who wore cowboy hats and spoke with a twang that seemed strong, put on, even in Atlanta. They had a few classes together -- math, biology -- but mostly they'd get to know each other out the back of the school waiting for their respective parents. Sitting on the low brickwork that boiled your ass in summer and froze your balls in winter.</p><p>The first few weeks they'd sit at opposite ends, ten or fifteen feet apart, but slowly they drew together. Rick was wicked with his yo-yo, a real Coca Cola one that lit up when you got the right momentum. Shane's parents could never afford stuff like that, not between their budget of booze and cigarettes, but Rick was kind. He shared. Didn't even do anything except laugh when Shane dropped the yo-yo and busted the light up system.</p><p>"It's fine," Rick says. "Still works, don't it?"</p><p>That's what Rick was like.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>When Shane told her that Rick was dead, Lori didn't know what she felt. Her stomach went low, sickly. Clenching and unclenching while the rest of the world turned fuzzy and far away. She sat down, she thinks, because the dirt was suddenly underneath her and Shane was squatting down and he put her arm around her and said with tears in her eyes, "I'm so sorry, Lori."</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She kissed him for the first time a few hours later. Grief stricken after announcing what happened to Carl. She needed someone to take away the pain.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Shane didn't, but it gave the pain an extra layer that didn't hurt so much.</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Prom night.</p><p>Shane will remember that night as long as he lives. He took a different girl, one he can't even remember the name of without his yearbook, and she was dressed in this hideous peachy-orange dress. But her face was stunning, at least when Shane first saw it. Then she disappeared because Rick was there.</p><p>Rick in a suit, hair slicked back and face shaven of the hints of stubble that had been sprouting out like weeds over the past year. He had on some sort of cologne, woody, and stood right up close to Shane to be heard over the pumping music.</p><p>"You scrub up well," Rick said.</p><p>Shane's heart thump-thump-thumped in his chest.</p><p>He'd snuck in a flask of booze and they passed it between them in a dark corner of the gymnasium. Something disgusting. Whiskey, maybe, but not the top-shelf stuff Shane started preferring when he graduated the academy. This was foul, bitter, hurting on the way down and staying painful. Shane didn't even need to be drinking, not tonight. Not with Rick there to make his head swim.</p><p>That was the first time they kissed.</p><p>It was far from the last.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>"We need to keep moving," Shane says night after night. Curled up with Lori in one of the tents they've claimed as their own. Defacto leader, it seems, even though Merle's fighting him for the position. Shane calls the shots. He makes the decisions. He fucks Lori like they're married and she hates him for it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"Where?" Lori says. "Where else can we go?"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>"You just don't wanna leave the place you and hubby and baby lived," he says with a deep sneer in his voice. "Forget it, Lori. We're moving next light."</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Lori went to school with them.</p><p>Travelled in a different group with her Stepford Wife friends who tossed their hair and clicked their boots and giggled in the corner of the cafeteria day in and day out. Lori shared English with Rick, Shane knew that, but he didn't care to know anything else. He and Rick still hung out after school, usually in Shane's room since his parents worked late. They explored each other's bodies, slow then faster. Touching every inch of skin and finding what made the other person groan out in joy. Shane loved it. Every second of it. And Lori was a faraway thought.</p><p>Police Academy saw Shane dating a few women when the hints got bad. Little comments of <em>fruit </em>or <em>fag </em>that tried to be passed off as simply meaning someone else. They didn't get to Rick --</p><p>"Why should I care what they think, huh?" he said when they were in a rent-by-the-hour motel room entwined together. "They don't know what's going on."</p><p>-- but Shane didn't even want a hint. He needed to <em>prove </em>himself, even if those so-called relationships lasted less than a month and he would always end up back in Rick's arms. Back against the heat of his mouth and the pressure of his cock digging into Shane's leg. The best sensations. His favourite sensations. That never, ever changed.</p><p>Until they graduated and she came back onto the scene.</p><p>"Shane," Rick said on afternoon on the job. They'd been partnered up for the first time and Shane was absolutely giddy. "I, uh, need to tell you something."</p><p>And those words, Shane <em>knew</em>. Knew Rick had moved on, forgotten him, left him in the hot Atlanta soil to rot like the carcass of a hare.</p><p>"Guy's gotta be speeding," Shane says, cutting him off. He slammed the car engine back on. "Let's roll."</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Rick is back.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rick is alive.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rick.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rick.</em>
</p><p>Shane.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>"I love you," Rick says, right up against Shane's ear. It's a whisper, a breath, taken into the twinkling night sky. "I always will."</p><p>Maybe.</p><p>Maybe not.</p><p>But he's there.</p>
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